D-backs skipper Gibson: Up to coaches to resolve fights, not escalate them

By Adam Green | June 18, 2013 at 7:58 pmUPDATED: June 18, 2013 at 8:26 pm

LISTEN: Kirk Gibson, Dbacks Manager

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By the time the dust settled, Major League Baseball had apparently decided the Arizona Diamondbacks were most to blame for the brawl that erupted between them and the Los Angeles Dodgers last week.

Arizona’s Ian Kennedy and Eric Hinske were each suspended for multiple games, while manager Kirk Gibson was docked one game.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles players J.P. Howell and Skip Schumaker, along with coach Mark McGwire, all received two-game bans, while reliever Ronald Belisario and skipper Don Mattingly were each suspended for one game.

A guest of Arizona Sports 620’s Burns and Gambo Tuesday, Gibson said he never told Kennedy to plunk Yasiel Puig or Zack Greinke anywhere, let alone in the face.

“Anybody thinks that that was intentional doesn’t know what they’re talking about,” he said with regards to the pitch that hit Puig.

“The inference by anybody on the other side that I would order that, they’re just dead wrong and they’re merely trying to justify their own actions,” he said of the ball that hit Grienke.

Yet, apparently the Dodgers’ coaching staff thought differently, which is why they reacted the way they did during the brawl. Gibson said the fact that he told them nothing was ordered from the dugout did not matter much.

“To be honest with you, they didn’t hear a word I said,” Gibson noted.

Mattingly, the video showed, threw D-backs bench coach Alan Trammell to the ground, and McGwire confronted both Gibson and coach Matt Williams, looking like he wanted to throw some punches of his own.